Accounting software for media and publishing companies

Tindle Newspaper Group Gets Multi-dimensional, Streamlined and Consolidated Reporting by Switching to AccountsIQ

Alastair Manson, Group Finance Director, Tindle

When Group Finance Director Alastair Manson joined Tindle, his immediate mission was to streamline the group, centralise processes and move the finance function away from Sage Line 50 and onto the Cloud. He quickly set about merging some 36 trading entities to become 7, and moved from locally-hosted database infrastructure, choosing AccountsIQ’s Cloud-based accounting and consolidation platform over Sage’s Cloud offering.

It was clear the Sage Line 50 platform wasn’t right for us and Sage’s Cloud option didn’t give us the necessary step up, neither did it have the level of controls that we needed around processes. AccountsIQ gives us a more sophisticated platform and automated consolidation. The process for accessing business information has changed beyond all recognition with AccountsIQ.”

Integration and automation makes for greater savings on resources

Having appointed accounting advisor and AccountsIQ implementation partner flinder, the project quickly began to take shape. flinder worked with Alastair through a number of workshops to determine the best reporting structure and to rationalise the group structure. The project also included automating processes, refining reporting, and integrating the new system with other business-critical software.

Like most local newspapers, Tindle relies heavily on the support of its advertisers to continue to bring local news (on and offline, and by radio) to communities in some of the more remote parts of the UK. The ad booking system the group uses is a bespoke piece of software which is not in the Cloud. The flinder team worked closely with AccountsIQ to ensure that a two-way data exchange could be achieved with the in-house developed system.

Additionally, iCompleat is used by the business to scan and digitise invoice processing. Alastair explains, “Because AccountsIQ integrates with iCompleat, we can drill-down to a copy of the invoice attached to each transaction, which is fantastic. Previously, we had to go into another system to look up an invoice, so it saves a huge amount of time and removes a tedious aspect of the job.”

Getting deeper business insight by moving to cloud accounting solution AccountsIQ

Prior to the system change, Tindle’s management accounting team would obtain Sage data from over 30 local databases and try to consolidate the reports. The disparity across the various book-keeping methods created inefficiencies which had to be remedied with standardisation.

Bookkeeping was done in different ways, at different times and to varying degrees of complexity across the businesses. Sage databases would be submitted from the local publishing centres and we would then have to do the reconciliation, prepayments and accruals, then send back the adjustments. All of this was risky in terms of version control. The reporting was inevitably inaccurate and late. Now, AccountsIQ allows us to report monthly management accounts within two weeks.”

The level of user controls in Sage was another issue which created inconsistencies in the information. When using Sage, Alastair was unable to close the accounting period each month. Additionally, due to low level user controls, local users could overwrite information and cancel historic transactions, throwing the data out of line. With AccountsIQ it is easy to establish and enforce controls with full user profiling and audit trail by user.

Alastair adds, “Now that we have a baseline process for reporting, getting further commercial insights will be really useful.” Next steps for reporting include being able to drill down to obtain separate P&Ls for each region, and even further to look at each publishing centre within each region.

Reporting against weekly budgets with the 4-4-5 method

Tindle’s publications are weekly, so reporting by week is more meaningful against weekly budgets. The business applies the 4–4–5 calendar accounting method which flinder was able to configure within AccountsIQ. (The method divides a year into four quarters of 13 weeks, grouped into two 4-week ‘months’ and one 5-week month.) Alastair says, “The 4-4-5 accounting method wasn’t achievable with Sage because it runs on calendar months. We always reported in 4-4-5 but that meant we had to shift invoices around in the background which left the process exposed to human error. The implementation team at flinder helped us scope this process when we were designing the system and it performs very well.”

Greater consistency, more control, and increased profitability

The new platform was implemented and operational prior to COVID-19 lockdown in the UK meaning that the system could facilitate remote-working and the business could continue to operate.

We were lucky to have completed our move to AccountsIQ before COVID-19 and it has meant we can continue operating with minimal disruption. With AccountsIQ and with the expert support from flinder, our controls are better, the information is far richer, the system is more robust and reporting is timely. It gives us better information on which to make decisions. By reconfiguring our operation and moving platform, we will likely save between three and four hundred thousand pounds per year.”

ION financial transformation specialist and AccountsIQ help Ramarketing improve reporting and reduce month end close by 40%

Ramarketing are an award-winning pharmaceutical PR and digital agency dedicated to helping ambitious and fast-growing companies in the outsourcing space grow and meet their commercial ambitions. Their previous finance system was Sage Financials, which Ramarketing needed to move from due to Sage ending the life-cycle of the product.

With the increasing demands of the growing business a scalable solution, with customisable reporting into ongoing project profitability was required.  Group consolidation and analysis was key to the business, whilst maintaining adherence to statutory legislation.

Other solutions they had previously used in the business could not accurately forecast and report on projects across the new markets that they were entering.  Access from a single server was obstructive and would slow processes down across the business.  With this in mind, going back to their previous solution was not an option

With this new stage of growth, Ramarketing required a solution that could both adapt to these changes and be legislatively compliant.  Increasing the reporting abilities would be key to maintaining margins across entities.

AccountsIQ selected as the scalable solution for Ramarketing

AccountsIQ met the business requirements on several levels, with accounting, consolidation and business intelligence – all in one unique, powerful Financial Management Software solution.  A completely cloud-based solution, AccountsIQ was able to resolve the current issues and ready the business for future success.

ION, a financial transformation specialist, was selected to support Ramarketing on a continuous basis. The support ION offer enables a point of contact for the finance team should any issues arise – whether they are knowledge or training issues, or problems in simple transacting to complex reporting.

Ramarketing were looking for an SME solution that provided a variety of insights into our project profitability, whilst managing group consolidation and multi-currency. ION helped us select, implement and support the introduction of AccountsIQ to achieve this, without compromising the statutory requirements of an accounting system.” Barry Goddard, Finance Director, Ramarketing

‍Through the deployment of AccountsIQ's media accounting software, Ramarketing are able to consolidate their final data into one complete solution using financial consolidation software.  A solution that is easy to use – yet effective in its reporting capabilities.

With AccountsIQ in place financial reporting across entities is both detailed and easy to navigate.   And, with a parent chart of accounts, adding new reports and reportable dimensions enabled the business to scale without having to overhaul their accounting structure.

As AccountsIQ is fully cloud based Ramarketing are able to access business intelligence and transact anytime, anywhere – giving the leadership team the up-to-the-minute data and metrics required to unleash business success.

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AccountsIQ gives New Statesman Media Group greater control over its finance function

The New Statesman Media Group (NS Media) has grown substantially since its launch in 1913 and as with all businesses in the publishing industry, they have had to adapt to survive in the digital era. NS Media has been on a mission to migrate all of its business systems to digital, including their accounting system, where Mark Moore, the group’s Finance Director, led the way to replace the outdated SunSystems accounting platform. Having compared several mid-market Cloud-based accounting software vendors, including Xero and iPlicit, Mark chose AccountsIQ for its full in-built feature set without the need for bespoking, as well as his confidence that the product would continually evolve and support this dynamic and constantly changing group.

Mark Moore, Finance Director, New Statesman Media Group:

We needed to move to a cloud-based accounting solution that could meet the needs of our group of publishing and media businesses. We were looking for a high level of core functionality instead of bespoke patching and a system readily capable of scaling-up. AccountsIQ is an established product and it became obvious to us the product would continue to evolve. Lastly, the pricing was very competitive, and the accreditation by the ICAEW was important to us.” – Mark Moore, Finance Director, NS Media Group." 

Better reporting for a complex business structure

NS Media’s complexity comes from the wide range of income streams and diverse businesses across the group’s 17 entities. With consolidation and multi-dimensional analysis built into AccountsIQ, it’s easy for Mark to extract the reports with as much complexity as he needs, including reporting by sector, product, distribution channel, brand and department. AccountsIQ supports up to six customisable dimensions linked to a unique BI code, plus an unlimited number of codes that can be assigned to each dimension. Mark is able to report across all dimensions and codes, and can also create bespoke reports with AccountsIQ’s Excel Add-in.

We’ve always had a complex structure and the great thing with AccountsIQ is that it can accommodate as much complexity as you want. We use BI codes and all of the dimensions because we need that level of complexity to cut across the information,” said Mark.

Group VAT reporting in line with Making Tax Digital has also been a boon to Mark’s finance function, bringing greater assurance when it comes to compliance.

Sun was terrible for VAT and we needed bridging software to do our VAT returns. With AccountsIQ we have one system that does everything,” said Mark. “It’s already integrated with HMRC which made it easy to adapt to Making Tax Digital. For compliance, it’s much better and gives us confidence in protecting the business for the long term.”

Efficiency benefits from integrations with Salesforce and Chaser

Mark is benefiting from two AccountsIQ integrations that are helping him streamline his accounts receivable process:

• Salesforce CRM for sales invoices and receipts
• Chaser for debt management and automated invoice chasing

AccountsIQ’s existing partnership with these Cloud-based apps made integration easy, despite NS Media having a complex Salesforce setup with numerous customisations. Integration support from AccountsIQ and good project management from Marks’ team combined for a relatively smooth integration. The finance team now has greater control over the accounts receivable process from start to finish.

When we invoice from Salesforce, ten minutes later it’s in AccountsIQ and we can start the collection process,” said Mark. “All of the data in our accounts receivable link up to Chaser which has automatic routines sending proactive emails to our clients to help us collect the invoice. We’re getting our invoices paid more quickly and saving a lot of time on accounts receivable tasks.”

Streamlining and automation benefits

AccountsIQ’s cloud accounting features and integrated accounting software are designed to automate as much of the accounting process as possible. Built-in automations include accounts payable, bank feeds, invoicing, expense capture, consolidation, workflow approval, and BI. By using these automations, Mark is gaining greater efficiencies in the long term that make his finance team more cost effective.

Everything is much simpler now with an accounting process that is more process-led rather than ad hoc,” said Mark. “For example, expenses and fixed assets are all automated whereas before, it took me about a week to balance everything in a spreadsheet. Things are much more efficient and we have more time to do things that provide more added value to the business. A lot of tasks like VAT used to be laborious, manual processes. Now they can be done in 5-10 minutes. That’s helping us get the best use of our existing resources and allowing us to be a leaner finance team.”

Greater control with data stored in the Cloud

With all of the data stored on the Cloud, instantly accessible, and most importantly, accurate thanks to AccountsIQ’s automations and integrations, Mark has more control over his finance function than he’s ever had before. Mark highlights several areas where these controls are particularly beneficial to the business:

• Workflow approval brings greater accountability.
• User access across the business, e.g. their IT director can update the fixed asset register, giving the finance team better visibility on assets.
• Bank payments are integrated directly with the bank.
• Integration with Salesforce and Chaser bring more control to the accounts receivable process.
• Clear view of the audit trail, with the ability to drill down into the data and easily track changes.

As an enterprise it’s much better to have a finance system that integrates with the business,” said Mark. “Features like workflow approval give a lot of control back to the finance team, and effectively we’re able to evolve. Now as accountants we’re not just people who process transactions; we have the ability to do more, contribute to strategy objectives and the overall value of the business.”

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